Appellate court upholds federal ELD mandate

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago has ruled in favor of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposed regulation that would require the use of electronic logging devices on all commercial trucks.    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago has upheld the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) proposed regulation that would require the use of electronic logging devices (ELD) on all commercial trucks.
   The judicial review was requested back in March by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), which said at the time the federal ELD mandate does not advance safety and is “arbitrary and capricious.”
   OOIDA further argued that the rules essentially amount to harassment and, as such, constitute a violation of professional truck drivers’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
   Under federal hours-of-service regulations, commercial truck drivers are limited in the number of hours they can work and drive daily, as well as on a weekly basis. The FMCSA rule, which was mandated by Congress in the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Enhancement Act of 2012 and finalized last December, requires that ELDs be installed on all interstate commercial motor vehicles model year 2000 and newer within two years.
   ELDs automatically record driving time, engine hours, vehicle movement, miles driven and location information, giving companies the ability to track the driving and non-driving activities of truck drivers.
   The ELD mandate is aimed at improving driver compliance with those regulations, decreasing paperwork, and reducing the number of fatigue‐related accidents involving large trucks.
   Regarding searches and seizures, OOIDA has said that the Supreme Court previously found that prolonged use of a warrantless GPS tracking device on a vehicle is clearly a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, but the Seventh Circuit court found no violation of constitutional rights.
   “Whether or not the rule itself imposes a search or a seizure, inspection of data recorded on an ELD would fall within the “pervasively regulated industry” exception to the warrant requirement,” the court said in its decision. “The agency’s administrative inspection scheme for such information is reasonable.”
   In addition, the petitioners claimed that the final rule is contrary to law because it permits ELDs that are not entirely automatic, but the court disagreed, saying OOIDA’s interpretation of the statute “seeks to pit one statutory requirement against another rather than allow the agency to balance competing policy goals endorsed by Congress.”
   OOIDA also argued that FMCSA’s definition of “harassment” was too narrow, the agency did not sufficiently consider confidentiality concerns to fully protect drivers, and its cost-benefit analysis failed to justify the mandate. But the court found these claims to be unsubstantiated as the FMCSA’s final rule provides a “reasonable definition” of harassment, a reasonable approach to protecting driver confidentiality, and the agency was not required to conduct a cost-benefit analysis in the first place.
   “Requiring ELDs was not left to the discretion of the agency; Congress mandated it,” the court wrote. “In the 2012 legislation, Congress did not instruct the agency to consider requiring electronic monitoring, as it had in the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995. In 2012, Congress simply ordered the agency to require ELDs.
   “Section 31137(a) states that the Secretary ‘shall prescribe regulations…requiring’ commercial motor vehicles to be ‘equipped with an electronic logging device.’ Congress instructed the agency to consider certain other factors such as the potential for harassment, § 31137(a)(2); the potential to reduce paper documents, § 31137(d)(1); driver privacy, § 31137(d)(2); and the confidentiality of personal data, § 31137(e). Congress did not condition issuance of the rule on a cost‐benefit analysis.”
   Prior to the introduction of ELD technology, driver status has been traditionally documented through paper logs called the “Record of Duty Status,” the court noted. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in a driver being taken out of service.
   The traditional paper records, however, “have been ongoing sources of concern because they are easy to falsify,” the court said. “For example, a driver could exceed the cap on continuous driving (11 hours), but fail to record the excess hours. There is evidence that falsification of paper records occurs on a regular basis.
   “The paper records are also vulnerable to human error,” it added. “These concerns were part of the impetus to update the hours of service regulations.”
   In response to the decision, OOIDA President and CEO Jim Johnston said in a statement the group is “disappointed” and “strongly” disagrees with the appellate court ruling.
   “Because this issue is of vital importance to our members and all small business truckers, we are reviewing our next steps to continue our challenge against this regulation,” said Johnston.
   FMSCA estimates the ELD final rule will prevent an average of 26 fatalities and 562 injuries resulting from crashes involving large commercial motor vehicles on an annual basis.
   Large motor carriers, many of which are represented by the American Trucking Associations, support the rule because they say it creates an even playing field. Motor carriers in the past were able to potentially record inaccurate times in paper logbooks in order to run longer hours and make more money.
   The case is No. 15‐3756 OWNER‐OPERATOR INDEPENDENT DRIVERS ASSOCIATION, INC., MARK ELROD, and RICHARD PINGEL, Petitioners, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, et al., Respondents., Sept. 13, 2016.